At home
Mmm.. I’ve just realised it’s a week since I last posted something on here… Part of the reason is that I have been over in Ireland visiting my family. It’s a strange thing going back to where you are from, as I guess many people would agree. I’ve lived over half my life away from Ireland now and yet I’ve never felt I totally understand the way things work in England (and now Wales) .. but Ireland feels unfamiliar in many ways now too. So why or what is that feeling? I guess it must be a cultural familiarity/strangeness - something to do with the way things are done and, probably even more so, with the way people communicate with one another. There are so many nuances to communication - the words and tones we use to convey humour, irony, mild disapproval, faint warning, complete delight - and these certainly vary from region to region. I was reflecting that it’s probably very good practice to have to communicate more straightforwardly, yet it’s so much more of a challenge. There’s also a definite pleasure in communicating in a more minimal way, because there’s a shared understanding of language. Back to that old debate - does language shape thought, or thought shape language? They say that Eskimos have many words for snow because the subtle changes are significant. Mmm… I notice my Derry phrasebook has a very significant number of words for the concept ‘drunk’…… so do you know the difference between ’stocious’ and ‘blootered’??
Something else that keeps running through my mind is a line from the David Lynch film ‘The Straight Story’ which I watched again last weekend. When someone says to the main character ‘What’s the worst thing about being old?’ he replies ‘Remembering when you were young’.
